Modifying links in posts

I just got started (today, in fact - came over from Blogger) and I had a question concerning links within posts. I know WP has an 'automatic' link-creating button, but I tried modifying the link so that it would open the link in a new tab without having to do a CTRL-mouseclick.

This is the html I used: LinkTitle. When I hit 'Publish', the Edit screen shows me the link was changed to Linktitle, and the link is completely gone. If I DON'T add the 'target="_blank" part, the link holds and works on my page.

As you have imported content from Blogger please enable this > Go to Settings > Writing and select “ ___ WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically” and then scroll down and click “Save Changes.”